Upholding Sovereignty in Learners

In today’s world, the education system appears to be a prepackaged experience for the learners. The teachers have a certain set of expectations for the learners. More so, there is an expectation for what impact the education should have in the lives of the learners. Such points of view and mentalities play a very massive role in reducing the desire to learn. Additionally, such expectations in the education system interfere with the norm and general flow of circumstances that should apply in shaping the outcome of learners. The modern education is extremely object oriented. It limits fails to give room for self-drive to a learner. As a result, the result of the current education fails to yield as good results as it is expected. In light of the above, it is advisable to adopt a different point of view for the current education system to yield better results and be helpful to the learners. In light of the above, it is important to embrace the fact that the role of an educator in the education system is establishing sovereignty in the student rather than simply making the student a consumer of experience. By enhancing and enhancing a student’s sovereignty, the educator helps in the creation of the complete power and ability for the students to experience and practice absolute governance in their actions and decisions.

Embracing sovereignty invokes the capacity of the students and the extent of their relationship between them and their teachers. Well, the traditional mindset limits knowledge transfer to a student from teacher only. However, that is totally flawed. There is a massive possibility for a teacher to get valuable knowledge from the student as well. It is true that the students must learn by reading and understanding the knowledge in the pages provided by their teachers and educators. However, the above does not mean that they are not in a position to achieve more knowledge than their teachers in the process of reading the packaged book knowledge. For example, in a college, the lecturers pass highly detailed informative knowledge to their students. The lecturers have their understanding of the topics and discipline they teach to the students. However, they should not expect the same kind of knowledge interpretation from their students. If they expect their students to have similar understanding in them, it will end up in a situation of feeding them with a fixed package of knowledge that is impossible to expand beyond the lecturer’s definition. It will inhibit their ability to discover and interpret scenarios outside the textbook context (Percy 47). It is true that the educators will have played their role to pass the information. The lecturers in the institutions of higher education will have effectively passed the historic information to their students. However, they will have jeopardized the growth and expansion of the relatable knowledge. The most primary characteristic of the world is evolution. Evolution calls for the change in everything on earth – knowledge included. In light of the above, sovereignty of the students stands out as a very crucial factor and aspect necessary for growth and development of knowledge (Percy 47).

Sticking to knowledge passing without laying emphasis on sovereignty makes learning much a hobby than a necessary challenge in life. The rationale for the above argument finds its basis in the fact that most educational institutions wrap educational material in fixed packages. Such fixed packages are limited to expansion much as the touristic scenes and sites lay there without any chances of tourists making any changes to them. Just like the tourists visit the attraction sites and leave afterward without having changed, the institutions of higher education in the modern day feature such an education system. The above institutions are full of students who spend their entire time receiving packaged educational experiences and spend their entire time in the learning institutions unknowingly letting opportunities of discovering new things pass unutilized. The above refers to a perfect example of scenario depicting the real “experience consumers” (Percy 63). According to the explanation by Percy, “consumers of experience” refers to the students who take classes as usual; they take tests and turn in homework. However, they do all the above for the purpose of getting college experience as opposed to getting useful knowledge applicable, various aspects of life. As illustrated, the above kind of teaching concentrates only in guiding the students from various points of knowledge to others. It trains the students to apply certain kinds of knowledge in the presence of certain kind of scenarios. However, it does not include the provision for creativity. The above kind of teaching system limits the innovativeness. It does not spark the necessary challenge a student should have to tackle new ideas. Much like the tourists who cannot create additional features in touristic sites, the students of such systems are denied sovereignty (Maughan 260). They do not learn beyond what the teachers will test in the examinations.

However, in as much as the current education system might be greatly affected by rigid and fixed standards, it is not right to blame the absence of sovereignty entirely on the learning system policymakers alone (Maughan 260). It is upon the intuition of individual students to feel the limitations and the system and the absence of sovereignty and, as a result, challenge the system to subject them to a system that enhances their knowledge. In light of the above, in cases where the educators fail in embracing and promoting sovereignty, the students are equally responsibility to challenge their tutors or the system in general and set new learning standards that promote an education system that promotes knowledge growth. The rationale for the above finds its basis the best student is the one who seeks for some knowledge. An authentic student finds the drive to learn from the desire to achieve certain goals and objectives, not from the expectation to pass the lecturers exams or please family or friends (Benatoff 1).

The true definition of learning must encompass an element of surprise. With respect to the above, as soon as the student feels the absence of surprise, he or she should take a step towards establishing the reason such an important element lacks. The main reason for the above is that it helps the student not to end up in the same way of life as the teachers. Ideally, the teachers who fail to uphold sovereignty are not so much to blame for practicing such fixed systems of passing knowledge (Maughan 260). In most of the times, they are victims of the system. During their time as students, they became victims of the fixed education system that lays emphasis on passing exams and maintaining a strict way of passing knowledge. The above means that they are former students who failed to seek for sovereignty. As a result, it is the only way of life they know. Therefore, they cannot teach sovereignty to their students. It is not in their system. But, on the other hand, the students, especially in the current world, have a lot of sources to seek the truth between the best learning experiences. As a result, they have within themselves, a significant amount of exposure enough to guide them towards what kind of education system they should practice.

One important thing the new age students should understand is the fact that there is more to education than just facts and textual knowledge in the books (Rodriguez 552). The most optimal education incorporates a lot more than the school and school related activities. Standard education is a conglomerate of various aspects in an individual’s life. By focusing on just books and following the lessons by the teacher, highly reduces the chances of an individual experiencing personal growth in totality. An individual who subscribes totally to the teacher’s knowledge without seeking further explanation may fail to understand the absence of sovereignty in his or her life. However, failure to identify something that is there doesn’t rule out its presence. As a result, the students who follow through in their teachers’ knowledge blindly unknowingly deny themselves sovereignty. Furthermore, they end up practicing the fixed kind of knowledge transfer which leads to the attraction of more subscribers to the anti-sovereignty system of education (Rodriquez 552).

Irrespective of the point of view, the knowledge in the books is vital. It helps in shaping the life of every individual. There is some basic knowledge that is both universal and crucial for forming a basis for establishing growth and development. Nobody is born knowledgeable. Passing through a system of school and books is necessary and vital to the development of human beings. Additionally, the education system will always embrace the fact that some people are more knowledgeable than others. More so, the most basic way of passing information to others is through teaching. As a result, the presence and existence of the relationship between teachers and students are universally accepted. Teachers must use books, both as a reference as well as a guide on how much knowledge they should pass on to their students at a certain time. Therefore, every education system must feature students, teachers and books. The above three provide the basic structure for the optimal education system. The main concern is the extent of the relationship between the three, that is, the extent at which one of the above parties imposes itself on another or all the rest.

The tight and fixed relationship between the teacher, books and student should not remain fixed forever. A good teacher should notice when the student gains enough standard knowledge enough to enable him or her make personal derivations and conclusions from the knowledge in the books. At such a point, the teacher should pave a way for the students to nature creative and creative thinking. In the event that a student fails to show initiative, the teacher should provide necessary help suitable for enabling the student to embrace the mentality of seeking and attaining free will. In short, the teachers should embrace the responsibility of ascertaining that their students emerge from the education systems as sovereign individuals as opposed to just consumers of experience. There are many students in the education systems that have great desires for personal achievement. Sovereignty for such students is the key catalyst for success, and their tutors would forever be indebted should they fail to grant it to them.

Maughan, Emma. Working Out Rhetorical Sovereignty in Challenging Rhetorical Situations: The Importance of Epistemologies in the Writing of American Indian University Students. Ann Arbor: ProQuest, 2008. Print.

Percy, Walker. The Message In The Bottle. New York: Open Road Integrated Media, 2011. Print.